Texas vs. Florida Preview: Offensive Players to Watch

The Florida Gators bring experience and versatility to one of the SEC's most notable offenses.

Florida Gators head coach Billy Napier looks on during fall football practice at Heavener Football Complex at the University of Florida in Gainesville, FL on Wednesday, July 31, 2024. [Matt Pendleton/Gainesville Sun] / Matt Pendleton/Gainesville Sun / USA TODAY NETWORK

The Florida Gators are entering a tumultuous season with pressure mounting on head coach Billy Napier. In recently published betting odds from Las Vegas, Napier is given a one in four chance to be the first coach fired in the 2024 CFB season, the highest odds of any coach in the nation.

With all of this in mind, it means that Napier not only has something to prove but also that he needs to get it done in spots that he is expected to be strong at. To his credit, Napier has tackled half of the battle in the off-season.

Florida was given 247Sports' seventh-best recruiting and fifth-best transfer class in 2024, an improvement from 12th in recruiting and 16th in transfers in 2023. Florida has the No. 1 quarterback and defensive lineman, arguably the two most important positions in SEC football headed to campus from the 2024 class, and the 2025 class already features two top-80 players. Napier has won half the battle so far.

The other half is on the field, which Napier has some mixed results. Since arriving in 2022, Napier has lost more games than he's won, finishing without a bowl win in both years and tallying 14 losses in 25 games. The last time a Florida head coach started with more losses than wins in their first two season was in 1979 when Charley Pell went from winless in year one to 8-4 in year two. You'd have to go back to the 1940s to find a coach with two losing seasons in their first two years coached at Florida.

So now, with the seat hot as ever, what does Napier need to do to convince the Gators that he's the guy? It seems like the easiest way for Napier to win over the Gator nation is to do what he was hired to do, create one of the top offenses in the nation.

In 2022 and 2023 Florida ranked between the 55th and 60th best offenses in the FBS. In four years beforehand while coaching Louisiana, Napier never fell out of the top 50 for offensive scoring. In 2019, the Ragin Cajuns had the 10th-best offense in the nation, and in the two years afterward the team only lost two games combined.

Napier faces a tougher schedule than any coach in the nation, which won't help his odds of keeping his job, but reasonable Gator fans and sponsors know this. With a defense as inexperienced as his, it should be expected that teams like Texas and Alabama can dominate offensively, but Napier needs to earn his money doing the same thing when the Gators get on offense.

Texas and defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski will obviously work to stop that in week 11 of the college football season, but who are the players on the field threatening the Longhorns?

1. QB Graham Mertz

Florida Gators quarterback Graham Mertz (15) looks on with his helmet on his head during fall football practice at Heavener Football Complex at the University of Florida in Gainesville, FL on Wednesday, July 31, 2024. [Matt Pendleton/Gainesville Sun] / Matt Pendleton/Gainesville Sun / USA TODAY NETWORK

Mertz has become a staple of the college football world over his career, now entering his sixth year in college and fifth as a starter. Mertz began his career in Wisconsin, where he completed more passes in his fourth year than all but three Badgers in history.

In 2023 Mertz transferred to Florida to replace the fourth overall pick in the NFL Draft Anthony Richardson, bringing the Gators starkly different play. Mertz lives at or around the line of scrimmage, completing an SEC-leading 72.9% of his passes. Mertz, unlike Richardson, rarely uses his legs, rounding out his playstyle that can be characterized by one word: safety.

Mertz completed a lot of passes and threw the least amount of interceptions among qualified SEC quarterbacks in 2023. He rarely throws the ball deep, oftentimes looking for short, three-step drop patterns that allow playmakers to get into space. Despite this, Mertz still remained productive, as he ranked 20th among Power 5 quarterbacks in passing yards, with only first-round pick Bo Nix beating him out in completion percentage and tying him in interceptions alongside Colorado's Shedeur Sanders.

In fact, Nix is a strong comp for Mertz. Both players were seemingly forced out of their first situations after poor showings, Mertz and Nix have extremely similar playstyles but rarely ever hurt their team. Nix's numbers in his first year at Oregon are better than Mertz's first at Florida, but Nix threw the ball 50 more times. If Mertz can make a late breakout and throw the ball more, who's to say he can't put up numbers similar to that of Nix on a worse team?

2. WR Eugene Wilson III

Florida Gators wide receiver Eugene Wilson III (3) waits for a drill to start during fall football practice at Heavener Football Complex at the University of Florida in Gainesville, FL on Wednesday, July 31, 2024. [Matt Pendleton/Gainesville Sun] / Matt Pendleton/Gainesville Sun / USA TODAY NETWORK

With senior Ricky Pearsall leaving for the NFL Draft, Wilson steps directly in line to be the alpha of this Gator passing game. In 2023, Wilson caught 61 passes for 538 yards and six touchdowns, a strong stat line for any receiver. The craziest part, however, was it was all done as a true freshman.

Wilson just barely missed out on being a top-100 recruit in the 2023 class, but that didn't stop Florida from running him out as soon as possible. The Tampa native is fast, agile, and can maneuver out of the slot better than any underclassman in the country. Wilson will be a favorite of Mertz's play style, which favors those underneath looks and the ability to turn something into nothing. With Wilson's speed, that's always a threat to a defense.

The sophomore is small, listed at 5'10 and 183 pounds, but could be a matchup nightmare for a Texas secondary that was a problem in 2023. The Gators brought in two bigger-bodied receivers in the portal this offseason to allow Wilson to gain space in the passing offense, and the Longhorns are probably lucky they're facing him before he becomes a junior or senior, on his way to being a top-100 NFL Draft pick.

3. QB DJ Lagway

Florida Gators quarterback DJ Lagway (2) throws the ball during fall football practice at Heavener Football Complex at the University of Florida in Gainesville, FL on Wednesday, July 31, 2024. [Matt Pendleton/Gainesville Sun] / Matt Pendleton/Gainesville Sun / USA TODAY NETWORK

Yes, you read that right.

The third player to watch for the Gators in week 11 is yet another quarterback. No, they aren't going to be running weird two-quarterback option plays, Lagway is on here for another reason.

As mentioned earlier, Napier was able to bring in the top quarterback in the nation this offseason, that being Lagway. The Texas native brings you everything you want in a quarterback. Tall, athletic, fast, and the ability to throw off-platform, something NFL evaluators seek no matter your past production. In fact the closest comp Andrews Ivins of 247Sports gave to Lagway was Richardson, who started just one full year at Florida before becoming a top-five NFL draft pick.

Lagway has the ability to start right away in college football, similar to the sentiments that Arch Manning drew when he came to campus last year. The difference is, that Texas was a lot more confident in starting quarterback Quinn Ewers than Florida is of Mertz currently.

As stated earlier, Mertz is fairly one-dimensional, lacking the upside to carry games by himself. That doesn't mean he's worse than Lagway at this moment in time, but it does mean the idea of Lagway may sound better the longer this season goes. If that one-dimension starts to become easy to counter, and the Gators start dropping games, Napier may pull out one last card up his sleeve to keep his job intact.

Lagway would have obvious growing pains as a true freshman in the SEC, but the man is 6'3 240 and set the Texas Class 6A single-season record for touchdown passes on his way to a National Gatorade Player of the Year award. If there's any player that can make the SEC transition immediately, it's him.

But there will be some caution from Napier, which is why you can't assume he's a starter in week 11. There hasn't been a five-star true freshman quarterback that was a qualified passer over an entire season in the SEC since 2016, when Jacob Eason quarterbacked the first, and worst, Georgia team in Kirby Smart's tenure. Eason lost his job by the start of the next season.

Lagway being given significant playing time would be unprecedented in the SEC, but not unfathomable. There are likely people out there that believe he is currently a better quarterback than Mertz, and if that's the case then he'll earn a job sooner rather than later.